(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method of controlling a blower of a fuel cell vehicle, and more particularly, to a system and method of controlling a blower of a fuel cell vehicle capable of shortening a time for stopping an operation of a blower at the time of turning a key to an off position of a fuel cell vehicle.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In general, a fuel cell refers to a type of electric power generator which does not convert chemical energy of fuel into heat by combustion, but converts the chemical energy into electrical energy in a fuel cell stack by an electrochemical reaction. The fuel cell is widely used for supplying electric power to drive electrical and electronic products as well as industrial and household appliances and vehicles.
A polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell among the fuel cells, which is used as an energy source for driving a vehicle, includes a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) including an electrolyte membrane, through which hydrogen ions pass, and catalyst electrode layers, in which an electrochemical reaction occurs, attached to both sides of the electrolyte membrane, a gas diffusion layer that uniformly distributes reactant gases and transmits generated electrical energy, a gasket and a fastening device that maintain airtightness of the reactant gases and a coolant and a proper fastening pressure, and a separation plate that moves the reactant gases and the coolant.
In the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell, hydrogen which is fuel and oxygen (e.g., air) which is an oxidant are supplied to an anode and a cathode of the membrane electrode assembly through a flow path of the separation plate, respectively, and the oxygen (e.g., air) is supplied to the cathode while the hydrogen is supplied to the anode.
The hydrogen supplied to the anode is decomposed into hydrogen ions and electrons by a catalyst of the electrode layer disposed on both sides of the electrolyte membrane, and only the hydrogen ions are selectively transmitted to the cathode through the electrolyte membrane, which is a positive ion exchange membrane, and simultaneously, the electrons are transmitted to the cathode through the gas diffusion layer and the separation plate, which are conductors.
At the cathode, the hydrogen ions supplied through the electrolyte membrane and the electrons transmitted through the separation plate come into contact with the oxygen from air supplied to the cathode by an air supplying apparatus and cause a reaction that produces water. Additionally, the flow of electrons through an external conducting wire, which is generated by movement of the hydrogen ions, generates a current.
The air supplying apparatus includes an air cleaner that filters foreign substances found in air, an air blower that compresses and supplies the air filtered by the air cleaner, and a controller (e.g., blower pump control unit, BPCU) that operates the air blower.
In the fuel cell vehicle having the aforementioned air supplying apparatus, it is necessary to prevent the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) from drying by shutting off the air supply into the fuel cell stack by rapidly reducing a rotation speed of the air blower, which is operated at a substantially high speed when the vehicle is turned off via a regenerative brake operation.
However, while a high voltage battery may be charged with regenerative energy generated by the regenerative brake operation of the air blower when all high voltage components of the fuel cell vehicle are normal, it may not be possible to stop the air blower rapidly using the regenerative brake operation when the high voltage battery or a high voltage DC-DC converter (HDC) fails.
The above information disclosed in this section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.